Private Jokesters, Public Enemies

One year ago Canadian truckers drove into Ottawa, halted their trucks outside Parliament, and held an impromptu fiesta to protest the anti-Covid regulations that instructed them to accept vaccines in order to safeguard the world from harm as they made their lonely drives along the great North American expressways. It wasn’t the first protest against the anti-Covid lockdowns and other regulations—there had been many in Europe and North America—but it was the first such demonstration that won mass sympathy around the world. It marked a turning point.

As more and more people shared their doubts with each other, they realized that doubters like themselves were in the majority. What happened next is called a “preference cascade”: it’s the moment when everyone wakes up and says: “Hey, that man behind the curtain is an emperor, and he hasn’t got a stitch of argument on.” An orthodoxy sustained by groupthink began to crumble. How had governments worldwide been led into imposing the long lockdown nightmare? At the time I argued that it had happened like this:

  1. Governments had panicked, cast aside their original pandemic planning (based on protecting vulnerable groups), and decided to suppress the virus by locking down entire societies.
  2. The forecasts supporting this policy were false or exaggerated. Covid-19 killed people; but its infection fatality rate was low, most of its victims were elderly people with pre-existing conditions; and “excess deaths” from all causes were quite low.
  3. But these realities were concealed by suppressing medical information that contradicted the orthodoxy, censoring scientists who dissented from it, and by “nudging” people to accept lockdown policies at a subconscious level with campaigns rooted in fear.

There had to be a better way—and there was. While Britain had been following the lockdown orthodoxy, Sweden that adopted a less restrictive model: reliance on the personal responsibility of ordinary citizens to make sensible choices. What did a comparison show? Britain’s death rate was almost twice as high as Sweden’s; its accumulated indebtedness was twice as high; and its economic recovery much slower.

Matt Hancock: "frighten the pants off everyone."

Even governments now began to crumble too. Rishi Sunak, then the U.K.’s Chancellor of the Exchequer and now its prime minister, gave an interview in which he revealed that there had never been a proper cost-benefit analysis to test the lockdown decision against other policy options; described how he had secretly gone to private sector researchers to compare official forecasts of future risks against their findings; and he discovered that the official figures were massively wrong.

This interview had less impact than it deserved. Too many people had an interest in not making a bigger fuss about it. It wasn’t only ministers and officials who had backed the wrong policies—the opposition parties, the media, the BBC, the medical journals, and the Whitehall scientists had mostly been calling for a tougher lockdown approach and more restrictions on personal liberty. They weren’t interested in exposing themselves. Something more was needed to get people's attention. And then was heard a shot from a smoking gun.

In order to write his own account of how he had helped to save Britain from Covid-19, health secretary Matthew Hancock who had been forced to resign for unrelated reasons (i.e., he was caught cuddling a senior advisor on security cameras, thus violating his own Covid regulations on personal distancing), gave his ghost writer, Isabel Oakeshott, a stack of WhatsApp messages between himself and other ministers at the center of the management of lockdown politics.

Isabel Oakeshott, whistleblower.

When the Hancock-Oakeshott writing team had finished their manuscript and sold it to The Times, Ms. Oakeshott coolly took the treasure trove of informal discussions between all the senior lockdown players and then she handed it to the Daily Telegraph, the Times’ main rival broadsheet. And for the last week the Telegraph has been breaking scoop after scoop revealing the foolish, unconstitutional, undemocratic, and absurd ways that the lockdown decisions were imposed by a few politicians high on their cut-price authoritarianism in full technicolor on a wide screen.

One example will suffice: In a WhatsApp conversation that included the prime minister, a Downing Street aide said: “Sorry for this, but the biggest Q of the day for our finest political journalism is: can I see my boyfriend of girlfriend if we don’t live in the same household?” Well, he at least had the grace to be embarrassed. But the government’s chief scientific advisor replied quite soberly that “the aim is to break contacts between households, so the strict answer is that they shouldn’t meet or should bunker down in the same house.” Fortunately the chief medical officer advised caution: it would be better to make this “advisory,” he thought, since a “sex ban” might invite mockery.

Good guess. Nonetheless, what to do about this acute national problem rumbled on lower down the civil service ranks for several weeks.

How could such things happen? The surprisingly simple answer is that a small subset of cabinet ministers, civil servants, and scientific advisors in key positions—prime minister Boris Johnson, Hancock, the head of the civil service, Simon Case, the chief medical officer, Chris Witty, etc., etc.—removed political decision-making from both parliamentary debate and scrutiny and from the full cabinet in order to made the management of the crisis more timely and efficient. They further concentrated power by determining that since Covid-19 was a medical crisis, they should be advised principally by a committee of doctors when they needed advice from a range of experts from different disciplines (if only to be aware of new problems and the inadequacy of some solutions).

With such a limited range of advice and without the benefit of informed scrutiny, they exaggerated their own capacities, took draconian power over peoples’ freedoms, and ran campaigns to frighten them into accepting that these extraordinary powers were necessary. Inevitably, they kept making more mistakes because, having frightened the public and themselves into a panic, they felt that they needed to keep announcing new measures to calm the public down again, thus making new mistakes, and thus refusing to correct them.

That’s how the entire descent into worldwide panic started. A British cabinet already equipped with a pandemic strategy accepted and praised by the World Health Organization was given extraordinarily high forecasts of likely Covid-19 deaths from Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College in London. But the cabinet abandoned its original strategy and embarked on a lockdown that confined people to their homes and strangled the economy.

Unfortunately, both the British government’s example and the prestige of Imperial College influenced other governments, especially those in the Anglosphere, which then imposed their own lockdowns, so Jacinda Ardern closed down New Zealand entirely, Scott Morrison made Australia a prison for its citizens, Justin Trudeau required Canadian truckers to get vaccinated for no particular reason, and . . . the whole massive stupidity started to unravel.

Shouldn’t the Canadian truckers be getting the Nobel Peace Prize about now? Maybe sharing it with Isabel Oakeshott?

Enemies of the People: Justin Trudeau

Trudeau's 'Just Transition' is All Hot Air

A recent poll has found that 84 percent of Canadians have no idea what Justin Trudeau's so-called "Just Transition" plan is, despite its being a key plank of his Liberal Party's governing program. And it's hard to blame them, because for all of the times Trudeau and his entourage have repeated the words, "Just Transition," they're generally careful to avoid specifics.

Of course, there's a reason for that. "Just Transition" is an attempt to address what the government has referred to as the “uneven impact across sectors, occupations and regions," of its climate policies, which, the Liberals acknowledge, will "create significant labour market disruptions.” Which is to say, it is the government's plan to ensure that the millions of men and women who work in the nation's enormous resource sector—nearly 15 percent of the nation's work force—will, if all goes according to plan, be unemployed. However, what if those workers were simply shifted into another sector?! Namely the "renewable" resource sector. Magically, you'd have a bunch of oil and gas workers performing green jobs instead, and everyone would be happy!

Do you believe in magic?

The idea of giving "green" jobs to oil and gas workers goes back at least to the Paris Climate conference of 2015, and even American liberals have flirted with it. Biden Administration "climate czar" John Kerry was widely and justly mocked for insisting that American oil and gas workers who lose their jobs can just go learn to make solar panels. Of course, the idea was typical Leftist wishful thinking—the vast majority of the world's solar panels are manufactured in China, and those jobs aren't relocating to the U.S. At least not until solar panel manufacturers are allowed to pay comparable wages in Texas and Oklahoma as they do in Xinjiang, an impossible outcome thanks to the 13th Amendment.

Canada has some history with similar plans at government planned employment shifts, which were mentioned in a devastating Auditor General's report on "Just Transition" last year. The first related to the federally imposed moratorium on the cod fishery off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1992, which led to a 15 percent jump in unemployment in the province. The government passed several major pieces of legislation meant to "transition" those affected to other fields, but though a lot of money was spent, the programs were ultimately ineffective. Consequently, the province's population dropped by 10 percent in under a decade.

The second example mentioned is more recent: the still-ongoing phase-out of coal power plants in Canada, and the attempts to transition those workers into other positions. Ultimately, Ottawa just told those workers to collect unemployment. When that money turned out to be insufficient for their needs, their home provinces had to kick in some more. As Don Braid explained, "much of the federal project money was aimed at diversifying local economies but had little to do with the coal workers. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, 83 percent of funding went directly to municipalities."

The Secretary for Hot Air.

Meanwhile, the Auditor General pointed out that the Trudeau government couldn't even say how, or if, the program did what it was supposed to do: "The agencies could not demonstrate how the funded projects met the objective to support a transition to a low‑carbon economy for affected workers and communities.” Keep in mind -- this coal transition thus far has affected just 1,100 workers. The full "Just Transition" plan is supposed to directly affect nearly 3 million! Consequently, the Auditor General proclaimed the following:

Overall, we found that Natural Resources Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada were not prepared to support a just transition to a low‑carbon economy for workers and communities.

So Canadians are confused about the content of "Just Transition" because there is no content. Just a lot of expensive bureaucratic nonsense which will leave the country generally, and resource workers specifically, much worse off. In other words, par for the course for the Trudeau government.

The Passive Perversity of the Canadian Elites

Canada’s only readable political scientist, Barry Cooper, made a nice distinction a few years back. “America’s boomers,” he said, “innovated. Canada’s built a vast sclerotic bureaucracy that has shut down the future.” I’m paraphrasing Barry in that last phrase, but when I was growing up in Montreal, the most ambitious older boys were taking foreign service exams purported to be damned hard, but which ushered in a virtuous life swanning around embassies and consulates promoting “peace.” Marrying one of them became a goal for my group of debs who saw a life of garden parties in exotic locales.

This vision of Canada's role in the world was led by the distinctly pacifist prime minister Lester Pearson, who managed to rebrand Canada as a peace broker via peacekeeping troops,  public relations, and a strong presence at the United Nations, and by the Marxist Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who succeeded him; together, the two men managed to shut down any spirit of entrepreneurial energy or indeed vigour in the country. Henceforward, we were to be the patsies of the known universe. Got a problem? We’ll turn up, hand out blankets, and pose for photos. No one seems to notice the absurdity.

Pearson: not born fighting.

Here's a secret. Canada, modern Canada, was built by the toughest, sinewy-est, meanest bunch of people the world has ever seen. Called Scotch-Irish, they were largely Celtic Borderers, those medieval mercenary gangs who lived on or near the battlefields between Scotland and England. In 1603, James, in an attempt at unity, hanged or ran off as many of the warriors as possible to northern Ireland. Over the ensuing 150 years they scattered to the New World, to the Antipodes and Africa. One-third died on the voyage. Fierce advocates of self-determination, after near half a millennium of Anglo-Scots oppression, if hardship meant freedom, they welcomed it.

In the U.S., they peopled the mountains of the Carolinas, and out west, they are credited with building the cowboy way. The Nicsouns, my clan, were a riding clan, one of The (terrifying) Names of the border. They lived on horseback, earned money as cattle thieves, as mercenaries. Elizabeth I said with 10,000 such men, James I could topple any throne in Europe. Small holdings weren't possible since periodically, the Scots and English armies tore up every harvest, burned every house. In the summers, harnesses jangling, they’d drive their livestock into the highlands of the Lake District, living like aboriginals, in easily the most ecstatic scenery in the British Isles.

Settling Canada in the little ice age, was easy, even fun. With no competition but the weather and terrain, they exulted in the grand scope of the country. In both WW1 and 2, they formed the tip of the spear in the British army, so violent and explosive they terrified the Germans. To my mind, they built the basic, the fundamental idea, the spirit, of the country. Not the Indians, not the voyageurs, not French Canada. Left to themselves, they’d continue their pastoral lives. The Scotch-Irish, born fighting, had other ideas.

You can see them today in the trucker convoy and you can see the revulsion for them in elite opinion. Canada is run largely by the Boomers, who decided against war, or indeed much in the way of any effort whatsoever, and they live cushy, safe lives, buoyed by an endless supply of debt, borrowed against the energy wealth of the nation they refuse to develop or use. I could argue that our media oligarchy and the rest of Canada who are fed by the public purse, act in some kind of revulsion of their ordinary small-town pasts. Because when the Scotch-Irish finally found peace, they embraced it fully in town and city life that was impressive in its order and cohesion. Not good enough for their descendants who were hungry for sophistication, for power, for self-indulgence, for displaying their smashing virtue by selling off the work of their ancestors.

This week, a widely respected CBC journalist was murdered in one of Toronto’s formerly safe neighbourhoods. The elites have practiced a kind of perversion of Christianity, inviting floods of the disaffected, many still living their violent clannish ways, into mainstream Canada, and he was murdered by one of them. Up until recently, the result of their malign policies has redounded on the ordinary,  normals, the truckers and the plurality that support them, those without access to the CBC or the unending debt pouring forth from the Bank of Canada.

We are a country in sharp decline. We sit on top of unimaginable wealth that could create cities filled with new immigrants from the tempest-tossed countries of the past. Wealth that could fuel a smart green future, once the economics of it are worked out. Thanks to our nasty environmental movement, the Oil Sands companies have invented world-beating reclamation technologies allowing extraction that can have little impact on the environment. Instead, our expensively trained engineers are bent to simple tasks, much like forcing physicists to use an abacus. Meanwhile, up North, lie seams and pits of valuable minerals.

He stands on guard for thee, Canada.

There is a metaphor for the country that could not be more apt. In northern Ontario, sits the Ring of Fire, an actual cache of resources so rich they could create another Golden Age and not just for the frozen north. One hundred miles away lie indigenous communities in which despairing kids routinely kill themselves year after year after year. One of my young cousins taught there until she couldn’t stand losing another student. They don’t even have roads, they can’t get to a shopping mall, much less a city. 

The Ring of Fire has been controlled for the past ten years by one of Canada’s worst politicians, a Liberal Party member named Bob Rae, who exactly typifies a boomer so self-indulgent and prideful and stupid that he squats over the mineral reserves, commissioning endless studies aimed at redressing imaginary wrongs. Only now is he considering development.

Former Liberal interim leader Bob Rae said Wednesday he was quitting politics to focus on negotiating on behalf of a First Nation tribal council facing the Ring of Fire development in northern Ontario. Rae said he would be quitting his post as Liberal MP for Toronto Centre on July 1 to focus his energies as a negotiator for the Matawa Tribal Council.

“It has become clear to me that the full scope of the negotiator’s job is no longer compatible with my also serving as a Member of Parliament,” said Rae. “Helping to improve the life of First Nations people has been a longstanding commitment of mine and this opportunity to serve is one I felt I could not decline.”

The Ring of Fire is an area in the muskeg swamps of the James Bay lowlands in Ontario’s north that contains a mining bounty. Rae said there is a lot at stake for both Ontario and First Nations with the Ring of Fire development. “How positive that impact could be has yet to be determined and will depend on the outcome of the discussions that are now under way and will only intensify in the time ahead,” he said.

It will take at least another ten years and $100 million before it happens. Aboriginal children die, while Rae luxuriates in his faux virtue. It’s a perfect picture of our ruling class, our lost country.

Pierre Poilievre Responds to Jordan Peterson's 'Reeducation' Order

A quick follow-up to our post from the other day: Canada's Conservative opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, has responded to the Ontario College of Psychologists's order that Jordan Peterson submit to "mandatory social-media communication retraining" or face the loss of his license to practice clinical psychology:

It is only right that Poilievre should do this, of course, since Peterson's supposedly "insensitive" online behavior includes retweeting Poilievre himself! And if agreement with the Conservative Party is enough to get Canadians driven out of their professions, well, the Conservatives aren't going to get a lot of votes in the next election.

Of course, as someone who aspires to govern Canada, Poilievre can't exactly say (as we did) that free speech and expression, due process, and all of the fruits of Magna Carta and his nation's own constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms are dead letters in Canada. But he does suggest that if this move against Peterson goes ahead, the Great White North will have drifted into dictatorship territory:

Freedom of speech only matters when you disagree.... no one has ever tried to censor someone for saying something that they agree with. It is only when there is a disagreement that it matters. And that's what distinguishes Canada, a free country, from dictatorships. Dictators don't censor things their citizens say that the dictator agrees with. Only things they disagree with.

Here in Canada, though, unfortunately through the cancel culture and the woke movement we've seen at university campuses and in the media and now, increasingly, in big, powerful corporations, and most recently with a professional licensing body, we're seeing the idea that someone can lose their job, their status, their ability to study, because they express something that is contrary to the government line. Now, I don't believe that that is the Canada we want.

Now, that is the Canada that quite a lot of people do want; in fact, until the arrival of Trudeau, it's the Canada they used to have and thought until recently they still did have. And while Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party lost the popular vote in the past two elections, it's managed to stay in power thanks to a man named Jagmeet Singh and his New Democratic Party, and to remake much of the country in their own image.

If their tide is going to be turned back, Peterson and Poilievre, operating in their own spheres of influence, are likely to have something to do with it. Unfortunately for them, it may already be too late.

Peterson Ordered to Report to Reeducation Camp for Criticizing Trudeau *UPDATED*

Read this and weep:

Dr. Peterson, the best-selling author of 12 Rules for Life: an Antidote to Chaos,  goes on to say,

We are now in a situation in Canada under @JustinTrudeau where practicing professionals can have their livelihoods and public reputations threatened in a very serious manner for agreeing with the Official Opposition and criticizing major government figures.... Canadians: your physicians, lawyers, psychologists and other professionals are now so intimidated by their commissar overlords that they fear to tell you the truth. This means that your care and legal counsel has been rendered dangerously unreliable.

Peterson rose to stardom in 2016 for his YouTube videos criticizing the Trudeau Government's Bill C-16, which added "gender identity" discrimination to Canada's criminal code. Peterson argued that this was a violation of the basic human rights of freedom of speech and thought, and vowed not to comply. His initial video went viral, as did his subsequent videos on the subject, and then his videos on nearly every subject.

Since that time he has developed into one of the deepest thinkers and most effective communicators of conservative ideas in the English speaking world. His podcast garners millions of listeners, and he's tackled some of the thorniest political topics of our age, including the climate madness which is our primary concern here at The Pipeline.

All of this has made Peterson a target. There have been numerous attempts to "cancel" him by branding him as racist or misogynistic or transphobic, or whatever hateful term of the moment is. This move by the Ontario College of Psychologists to threaten Peterson's clinical license and livelihood is just the latest. And, despite the flimsy nature of these allegations, it might just succeed where the others have failed. That's because in Canada, a nation which has already abandoned the freedoms of speech and assembly—take a look at our coverage of last year's Freedom Convoy, and the Trudeau government's reprehensible treatment of those who participated in and supported it—due process too is increasingly a dead letter.

Kudos to Dr. Peterson for continuing to fight. We hope he prevails against this injustice, for his sake and for the sake of the once great nation of Canada. But we're not holding our breath. Somehow one senses that the worst is yet to come.

UPDATE: Jordan Peterson writes on Twitter:

Peterson explained his stance in the pages of Canada's National Post:

If I agree to this, then I must admit that I have been unprofessional in my conduct, and to have that noted publicly, even as the college insists that I am not required to admit to any wrongdoing. If I refuse — and I have (of course) refused — the next step is a mandatory public disciplinary session/inquiry and the possible suspension of my clinical licence (all of which will be also announced publicly).

I should also point out that the steps already taken constitute the second most serious possible response to my transgressions on the part of the college. I have been placed in the category of repeat offender, with high risk of further repetition.

What exactly have I done that is so seriously unprofessional that I am now a danger not only to any new potential clients but to the public itself? It is hard to tell with some of the complaints (one involved the submission of the entire transcript of a three-hour discussion on the Joe Rogan podcast), but here are some examples that might produce some reasonable concern among Canadians who care about such niceties as freedom of belief, conscience and speech:

  • I retweeted a comment made by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre about the unnecessary severity of the COVID lockdowns;
  • I criticized Prime Minister Justin Trudeau;
  • I criticized Justin Trudeau’s former chief of staff, Gerald Butts;
  • I criticized an Ottawa city councillor; and
  • I made a joke about the prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern.

I did all that “disrespectfully,” by the way, in a “horrific” manner that spread “misinformation”; that was “threatening” and “harassing”; that was “embarrassing to the profession.” I am also (these are separate offences) sexist, transphobic, incapable of the requisite body positivity in relationship to morbid obesity and, unforgivably of all, a climate change denialist.

For criticizing our prime minister and his cronies and peers, for retweeting Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the official Opposition in Canada, and for holding and for daring to express reprehensible political views, I have now been convicted by the College of Psychologists of “harming” people in some manner serious enough to justify my forced re-education. Now that I have refused, I will definitely face further exceptionally public, demanding, time-consuming and expensive disciplinary action, including the suspension of my licence. This, despite the fact that none of the people whose complaints are being currently pursued were ever clients of mine, or even knew clients of mine, or even knew or were acquainted with any of the people they claim I am harming. This, despite the fact (and please attend to this) that half the people who levied such complaints falsely claimed that they had in fact been or currently are clients of mine...

In any case: I’m not complying. I’m not submitting to re-education. I am not admitting that my viewpoints — many of which have, by the way, been entirely justified by the facts that have emerged since the complaints were levied — were either wrong or unprofessional. I’m going to say what I have to say, and let the chips fall where they will. I have done nothing to compromise those in my care; quite the contrary — I have served all my clients and the millions of people I am communicating with to the best of my ability and in good faith, and that’s that.

Best of 2022: 'Forget Guns, Whatever Happened to Men?'

The year of Our Lord 2022 was a good one for us here at The Pipeline, having seen the launch of our weekly Substack column; the release of our first book, Against the Great Reset: Eighteen Theses Contra the New World Order; and the publication of a lot of excellent content from our wonderful group of contributors. Our final selection proved to be one of the most-clicked articles of the year, and seems as timely now as it was then, if not more so. 

Forget Guns. Whatever Happened to Men?

Michael Walsh, 31 May, 2022

The Uvalde school shootings, coming as they did just before Memorial Day, have thrown into high relief one of this country's most vexing problems. No, it's not guns, even "military-style" guns, to use a term that has no meaning except apparently to journalists—who should also brush up on the meaning of "semi-automatic" while they're at it but probably won't. Guns have been a part of American society since the Pilgrims shot their first turkeys, and have served the country well throughout its history. That some of them have been used in the commission of crimes by criminals hardly outweighs their usefulness to the founding and maintenance of the Republic. Just ask Sergeant York.

The perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. A disarmed domestic society is not something devoutly to be wished for. In any case, what the gun-grabbers are really aiming for is not "gun control" or "common sense" gun laws but confiscation and abolition. And with nearly 400 million firearms in the country, and gun ownership widely popular, that is not going to happen as long as the Second Amendment is the law of the land. In the meantime, see what just happened in Canada, which is now completing its post-Covid descent into a fascist tyranny:

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced the introduction of new legislation to further strengthen gun control in Canada and keep Canadians safe from gun violence. Bill C-21 puts forward some of the strongest gun control measures in over 40 years. These new measures include:

  • Implementing a national freeze on handguns to prevent individuals from bringing newly acquired handguns into Canada and from buying, selling, and transferring handguns within the country.
  • Taking away the firearms licenses of those involved in acts of domestic violence or criminal harassment, such as stalking.
  • Fighting gun smuggling and trafficking by increasing criminal penalties, providing more tools for law enforcement to investigate firearms crimes, and strengthening border security measures.
  • Addressing intimate partner violence, gender-based violence, and self-harm involving firearms by creating a new “red flag” law that would enable courts to require that individuals considered a danger to themselves or others surrender their firearms to law enforcement.

Luckily, here in the U.S., "shall not be infringed" has a meaning that is clear to everyone who speaks English, even Supreme Court justices and emotive half-wit Connecticut senators who shamelessly exploit dead children for their own political purposes. Gun confiscation from overwhelmingly law-biding legal gun owners makes about as much sense as locking down the healthy during a relatively minor viral epidemic. Oh wait...

No, the fault, to paraphrase Shakespeare, is not in our guns but in ourselves, and specifically in our men. For half a century masculinity has been under concerted attack in this country—fish, bicycle is one of the more benign forms, although still passive-aggressively hateful—until today it has been deemed "toxic" by the harpies of fourth-wave feminism and their very strange bedfellows in the QWERTYUIOP+ brigades. The unsurprising result has been the diminution and removal of genuine masculinity from the public square— even in the military, which now prizes women and trans-wokeness over men—and its replacement with sundry culturally unacceptable substitutes.

Chief among the missing males have been fathers: real, biological, spiritual, emotional, disciplinary fathers. Not "baby daddies," to use the ghetto term that has percolated its way up and into the larger culture. Not transient sperm donors, who wouldn't exist in the first place without trampy women to enable them. Not semi-functioning biological males embedded in the transgressive woke community who take an "X" for the team. But real men, who not only take responsibility for their children but impart responsibility to the next generation, especially to their sons...

In Canada, the 'Climate' Is the Crisis

Last year at the big United Nations climate conference, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke about a town in British Columbia: “There was a town called Lytton. I say ‘was’, because on June 30 it burned to the ground.” The cause, and therefore the meaning, of the fire was clear to Trudeau: People are emitting greenhouse gases, raising temperatures, and the world will be plunged into fiery chaos... unless, under the wise guidance of “world leaders” at the U.N., we change our wicked ways.

“How many more signs do we need?" he asked in righteous exasperation. He warned that “what happened in Lytton can and has and will happen anywhere.” His ungrammatical prophecy is mysterious. Was he claiming that towns everywhere would burn to the ground, and already had? Perhaps he meant that every town on the planet was now as likely to burn to the ground as tiny Lytton—surrounded by vast forests, where summers are generally extremely hot and dry compared to most places in Canada.

In any case, the climate was in" crisis." As it always seems to be: It was in crisis back in 1989 when Canada hosted the first international climate conference, and in 1992 when Brian Mulroney’s government signed the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change. It was still in crisis 2015 when Trudeau’s government signed the U.N.'s Paris Climate Accords.

2016: Trudeau smiles as he signs away Canadian sovereignty on Earth Day.

And in 2021, after three decades of international conferences and agreements, emissions plans, countless new regulations, a metastasizing climate bureaucracy, climate taxes, subsidies, and investments—100 billion dollars in climate spending over the last seven years alone—the climate was still in crisis.

It was still in crisis last week, of course, at the most recent U.N. conference. This time the Canadian sermon was delivered by the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, once nicknamed “the Green Jesus of Montreal.” Instead of a fire out west, the sign this year was “the wrath of Hurricane Fiona” out east, proof of “the cost of climate inaction.”

A normal person might wonder whether the hurricane—or fire, or whatever—was perhaps a sign that all this stupendously expensive action was futile. Maybe the “world leaders” don’t really know how the climate works, or how to fix it? Maybe they don’t want to fix it. But, unfortunately, there are no normal people at climate conferences, and these questions go unasked.

How does the climate work? Greenhouse gases released by human activity are believed to play a role in the Earth's getting slightly warmer: roughly one degree Celsius since the industrial revolution, maybe one more by 2050. But there are other influences on the climate: ocean currents, the earth’s orbit tilt, the sun. None are fully understood. Greenhouse gases are natural components in the atmosphere, and the human contribution is small. (The earth naturally emits ten times as much carbon dioxide as we produce.) The climate, then, is the interaction of all these complex systems and their interaction with human activity. Which is also extremely complex, come to think of it: farming, road construction, air traffic, wars, migrations, hunting, garbage collection, elections, drug smuggling, etc. 

So the “world leaders” claim that just the right policies will control the purely human aspect of one factor in this hyper-complex scenario—and thereby control temperatures, decades later, within fractions of a degree. To articulate the claim is to see how absurd it is. Was the fire in Lytton a sign? Do we even know that climate change is having any effect on the behavior of fires in Canada? 

2022: there goes Prince Edward Island.

Back in 2016 there was a serious wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Elizabeth May, leader of Canada's Green Party leader—who maintains that her job is “to save the whole world”—declared that “of course” the fire was “due to greenhouse emissions.” Interestingly enough, Trudeau was more cautious: “There have always been fires, there have always been floods. Pointing to any one incident and saying, ‘This is because of that’ is neither helpful nor entirely accurate.” He may have been on to something.

Natural Resources Canada concedes that fires are caused by a “complex combination of influences.” It is “difficult to identify clearly whether any measurable changes in the patterns of wildland fire over the last few decades can be directly linked to climate change." Moreover, fires seem to be getting less destructive: “the annual amount of area burned seems to have decreased during the 20th century.” And in many large areas where fires have been declining in number and severity, this positive trend “might be the result of climate change causing greater amounts of precipitation over time in these regions” (emphasis added). 

So their position is that climate change may cause fires in some places, but there’s no strong evidence that it ever has. Meanwhile, it may also prevent fires, or limit the damage they cause. Is this what we're calling a crisis?

There were over 12,000 fires in 1989 and again in 1995. Over 14 million hectares burned in total. By contrast, in 2021, the year of the Lytton fire, there were fewer than 8,000 fires burning less than 5 million hectares. In 1825, the Great Miramichi Fire burned over 1.5 million hectares in New Brunswick. It’s believed to have been the largest fire in North American history. Was the climate in crisis back then? Maybe it was. Apparently, the crisis consists in very small changes in average temperatures over decades and centuries. That’s what Elizabeth May and other activists call a “destabilized climate.” By this standard, the climate has never been “stable.” The climate is the crisis.

This madness dominates public culture in much of the world, but it is especially potent in Canada. The official narrative sounds like it should be shouted by a homeless man on a street corner: The end is nigh, and the signs are everywhere. 

The Trudeau Economy: Smoke & Mirrors

It was rather surprising, several months ago, when Statistics Canada released their Labour Force Survey for 2021 and it showed record job growth. During a pandemic that saw Canada's federal and provincial governments adopt some of the harshest lockdowns and other restrictions in the western world? How?

Well, a new study by the Frasier Institute goes pretty far towards answering that question. The report, "Comparing Government and Private Sector Job Growth in the Covid-19 Era," found that more than 86 percent of those new jobs were in the public sector. Overall, government employment increased by 9.4 percent. Meanwhile, private sector employment remained essentially flat. “Pretty much all of the net job growth, since the start of the pandemic, has been driven by growth in the government sector,” said the study's co-author, Ben Eisen.

In their write-up on the paper, the National Post further notes that, "adjusted for population growth, the share of workers 15 years old and up employed in the private sector also saw a decline, from 49.3 percent to 48.2 percent."

The government added 366,800 new jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic, the report says, while the private sector was only responsible for adding 56,100.

Now, many government jobs are necessary for the functioning of modern, first-world nations. But, in general, they add no value to a nation's economy. When close to 90 percent of a nation's job growth—366,800 new jobs to 56,100—is in the public sector, that nation's economy is in a dangerously sclerotic state.

So, why has Trudeau gone to war with farmers and the natural-resource and energy sectors, again?

Diary of an Acclimatised Beauty: Mourning

We’ve lost our beloved Queen and no amount of wishing is going to change that. And it’s what we all feared when her Platinum Jubilee was held at 70 years rather than 75. Judith (mummy) has been crying off and on since we got the news and I’ve done my best to keep from further upsetting her. I didn’t expect to find myself at my childhood home in St John’s Wood on this day but if I’m honest, I really did expect Elizabeth's reign to continue on forever. As Daddy said, we’ve known nothing else. She was queen when I was born in British Hong Kong and when my grandmother was said to have tucked a small framed photo of HRH into my pram.  

Daddy has taken Judith to tea nearly every day, which has stopped her from watching the telly nonstop, and bracing when she sees Camilla. In the end I’m sure she’ll come round but for now she won’t accept Charles as our sovereign. Given how many have rung to ask her to clarify the rule, I believe she’s not alone. Canada, which still has the queen on its currency, opposes Charles succeeding his mother by 67 percent. A rather inauspicious start for the prince who has so valiantly fought for our planet.

At your service, Ma'am.

Walking back from my first (and last) British Military Fitness Class I couldn’t help but notice a sea of brightly coloured cellophane. We were told it would not be the miles of flowers we saw at Diana’s death and that arrangements would be ‘sensitively moved’ to Green Park, but what they hadn’t addressed was the impact on our landfill. And in response I quickly organised tables with stewards to remove the plastic wrap so that the flowers could more easily be composted and replanted. I felt the queen would have wanted no less, and as we transition to a green-minded king, it was the thing to do. 

I would have volunteered myself but I’d promised to take over tea-duty with Judith for today. She was in black of course and immediately told me that her single brooch was in good taste— having been her mother’s. And again reminded me that, ‘Your grandmother and the Queen were of an age’. As if I could possibly be allowed to forget. She also warned me that she wouldn’t be able to eat a thing. A warning that became less credible after devouring two plates of sandwiches.

We didn’t see anyone she knew but then one rarely does. And I was sure everyone she knew was still ringing the house to discuss the title of Queen Consort and dashed hopes of a morganatic marriage. Yet somehow, this was not an appropriate topic for our tea. Or so she said. I wanted to keep her mind away from her sadness but not so far away as to have to hear what I knew was coming:

‘Now Jennifer’ she began.  UGH! I motioned for another glass of champagne. ‘You do understand that once King… Charles can no longer involve himself in all your pet green projects’.

‘I thought you were putting a stop to that’ I responded.

‘I just thought it right, that someone say something to you—to break the news’.

‘That the Queen has died?’ I asked.

Take my hand, Mum. It will be all right.

She found that remark uncalled for and perhaps she was right but she really could be a pain, and this outing was for her benefit. The last thing I wanted right now was to be sitting for tea when I’d learned mourners were now leaving Paddington bears and marmalade sandwiches WRAPPED IN PLASTIC for the queen.  

For a moment I wondered if Judith had read the note I penned to the new King Charles, urging him not to drop all of our good works, and to continue to be a defender of the planet, but in the end I think she was just trying to be a mother for a change.  In my letter to Charles I’d reminded him that he was possibly the most significant environmental figure of all time, and that he could not abandon Terra Carta… no matter anything! As prince he could act as a one-person NGO, but as king he would be constrained by the convention that the monarch should not interfere in the U.K.’s political decision-making, or take any overt political stance. I reminded him that the environment isn’t politics, it's life. 

Many people feel that as Prince, Charles overstepped the bounds of constitutional monarchy, including his blistering attack on corporate vested interests.  But it has always been understood that this freedom would end as soon as he took the crown. So I believe it is important that he re-brand his stance—not as one of advocacy, but one of responsibility. Less focus on agenda, and more on serving the best interests of the country.

God save the king.

I explained that we have evolved as a country, and in time I believe he will be able to continue his lobbying at the highest political level, as he has done rather effectively with his black spider letters. And as the Tories have always been the conservators of the land there should be no risk of his agenda being seen as partisan or political… simply important. During his confidential weekly meetings with the Prime Minister he will be able to air his concerns over the environment and world climate.

When I got home Daddy handed me the paper, the headline read: 'World leaders to travel to Funeral by bus, commercial plane'. Surely he could not be serious. This was a mistake. ‘NO!’ I shrieked. 

‘I thought you’d be happy to see this—it’s the green solution, smaller carbon footprint and all that’, Daddy said smirking.

Ugh! How does he not get this? Along with world leaders we are the ones saving the planet. We are the ones taking up this very important task. In the same way that failing corporations must pay more to attract top talent… we certainly should not be punished or dissuaded by making us fly commercial.